Federal File

An Oval Office confession

President Clinton wants every 8th grader to be able to conduct
research via the Internet in three years. By then, he may have
learned to use it himself.

During a recent Internet conversation with children in Los Angeles,
Mr. Clinton 'fessed up: Seems he's still in the slow lane on the
information highway.

At the end of the conversation, a labor leader organizing volunteers
asked how many students knew how to use the school's computers. Most
raised their hands.

"Don't ask the adults," joked Miguel Contreras, the
secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, after
seeing the response.

"Don't ask the adults on this side of the screen, either," Mr.
Clinton said from the Oval Office, where a video camera captured images
of him and Vice President Al Gore and transmitted them to a computer
across the country as part of Net Day festivities on April 19. "The
vice president can raise his hand. I'm not so sure about me."

A few moments later, the president and the vice president spoke with
a group of teenagers in Hartford, Conn., who tutor youngsters on how to
use computers.

"Maybe you could send me a volunteer. I need some help down here,"
Mr. Clinton said.

The nation's top elected officials participated in the conversations
to encourage the wiring of schools for Internet access on the third
national Net Day. Cabinet secretaries, union members, and educators
volunteered in schools throughout the country.

Eavesdroppers plead guilty

Two Florida school employees who taped a politically sensitive
conference call involving House Republicans pleaded guilty last week to
illegally intercepting a cellular telephone call.

John and Alice Martin, Democratic activists who belong to the
Florida Teaching Profession-NEA, recorded the Dec. 21 conversation
between House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other GOP leaders about the
ethics violations Mr. Gingrich planned to admit to later that day.
("Federal File," Jan. 22, 1997.)
The Fort White couple later gave the tape to a Democratic congressman
who leaked it to the press.

The Martins' crime qualifies as an infraction under federal law and
could carry fines of up to $5,000. The penalty would have been worse if
the couple had used the tape for "private financial gain," the
Department of Justice said in a news release.